Funding is the underlying cause of many of the problems behind such projects; as they run over budget, those paying the bills understandably start to grumble. But once the asset is in place its true value can start to be appreciated.
Some times it is shareholders who lose out—the building of the UK's rail network left many out of pocket in the 19th Century, more recently the Channel Tunnel did the same—but no one is talking about filling it in and today millions enjoy the convenience of crossing the channel by train whoever it was who paid the initial premium.
Perhaps the most expensive asset that shareholders have ever forked out for without getting a return is the public internet. The biggest losers in the 2000 stock market crash were the shareholders of IT and telecoms firms. But there is an argument that goes, just as with the UK rail network, that such stock market bubbles are a way of getting the rich to pay for assets to be enjoyed by masses at a fraction of the price paid for them—maybe, although many of the losers in 2000 were investment funds affecting pensioners and other small investors.
But when it is tax payers who are forking out, the attention paid to expensive projects is rightfully at its greatest. Most tax payers are not rich and they expect to see a return on their investment. The huge amounts being spent in the UK on the NHS' National Program for IT (NPfIT) has put it under close scrutiny. But the project, which will create a whole new IT infrastructure for the NHS based on a dedicated network—or "Spine" as the program calls it—is well underway. Most of the cash required to complete it is committed. History will most likely conclude that the project could have been more efficient and huge sums might have been saved if it had been managed differently.
Whatever the overspend turns out to be, UK tax payers will end up with an asset that should improve the long term delivery of healthcare and make further reform of the NHS easier. Unlike the NHS itself, the infrastructure that results from the NPfIT may not become a national icon, but it will be relied on for delivery of healthcare across the UK for years to come. Future beneficiaries will not grumble about the money spent by today's taxpayer.
